


like branches in a tree

by mirkandmidnight



Series: author's favorites [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awesome Phasma, Found Family, Gen, Moral Dilemmas, Redemption, Symbolism, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 06:09:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6412138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirkandmidnight/pseuds/mirkandmidnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phasma is not one given to questioning.</p><p>This is different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like branches in a tree

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [tomorrow there'll be more of us](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6242641) by [mirkandmidnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirkandmidnight/pseuds/mirkandmidnight). 



Above all else, Phasma values discipline and honor. Without discipline, nothing gets done, and without honor, nothing is worth doing. It is these qualities which cause her meteoric rise through the ranks of the First Order, and she tries to instill them in her troops.

Your troops are like your family. You have to trust them above all else, and know that they will have your back, or how can you fight together?

Phasma’s troops are the closest thing she has to a family. Her mother is the First Order, and the stormtroopers under her command are her brothers and sisters.

The first day she is made a captain, she stands in front of a legion of white faces and black eyes staring up at her. She is sweating inside her shining platinum armor, and she has never felt more afraid in front of her own people.

So she does the unthinkable. Phasma reaches up and loosens the clasps on her helmet, then takes it off. She tucks the thing under her arm and looks out at her brothers and sisters.

“Discipline and honor,” she says. “These are what make us strong. We work together for the good of the cause, for the good of the unit, for the good of the family.” She’s caught their interest now. Stormtroopers have no biological family by default.

“If you take care of your unit, your unit will take care of you,” she says, “and you can do that by acting with discipline and honor. I am your sister, and you are my brothers and sisters. If we work together, we can accomplish anything.”

Phasma takes a personal interest in each and every one of her troopers. She memorizes all of their identification numbers and takes extra shifts so she can walk patrols with them. She reads their reports and learns their birth dates so she can mention it on the day.

When she hears them calling her Trooper Mom when they think she isn’t listening,s he smiles and says nothing.

Her name still feels odd to her. She is still used to thinking of herself as PM-3309, and not Captain Phasma. Sometimes she still does not respond when people call for her. She grits her teeth and tries to get used to it, because she worked hard to ear this, and her family deserves the honor of having one of their own be named.

She takes care of the troopers under her command. When one of them is ill, she does her best to see that they are placed on restricted duty until they are well. She doesn’t expect anything in return. After all, she’s just doing her best to be a good captain.

It comes as something of a surprise that when Phasma herself falls ill, two of her own troopers approach hesitantly and ask if she wouldn’t feel better after laying down for a bit.

But just because they are family doesn’t mean she doesn’t hold them to high standards. When she catches PT-2436 sneaking rations from the dining hall, she issues him a harsh verbal lashing, reprimanding him until she feels he is properly ashamed.

“You have disgraced your family,” Phasma tells him. She does not take it outside the unit. This is still her family, and they are hers to deal with. PT-2436 does not slip again, she notes, with something akin to pride. Other units do not do so well.

Phasma mentions this to General Hux one day, and soon realizes that he is something of a kindred spirit. He also values discipline highly, and professes admiration for her work within her unit.

They become fast friends, and soon Phasma is sparring with him twice a week. She knows that she could beat him nine times out of ten, but every so often she lets him win. It is a simple way of ensuring his friendship, and she's not entirely sure he isn’t doing the same thing to her, stroking her ego.

Hux is also rising quickly through the ranks of the First Order, but she things privately that it is for the wrong reasons. He covets power in the same way that she wants her family to succeed. But he doesn’t seem to care how he gets it, and that worries her a little. But she has other things to think about, so she pushes it from her mind and concentrates instead on her troops.

If Hux is the extreme of discipline with no honor, Lord Ren is the epitome of honor without discipline. The man is obsessed with preserving the legacy of Darth Vader, but seems to have no concrete plan for achieving his goals. He simply rages, without a particular endgame in mind, and the entire Finalizer quakes with the force of his fury.

Hux and Ren despise each other, and if she were more ambitious, Phasma might take it upon herself to set the two of them at each other’s throats, to gather the wood and light the flame and watch the two of them destroy each other in the ensuing inferno. She might do it anyway, just to see them burn.

But she is actually sort of invested in the two of them not killing each other, so she doesn’t poke her nose in where it isn’t wanted.

That is, until SD-0770, known as Sevenes, sprints up to her in the middle of beta shift. “Captain Phasma,” she says, breathing hard, “you have to come quickly. Lord Ren’s lost it. I think he’s going to tear up the whole ship!”

For a moment, Phasma sees red. How dare this upstart Sith come along and make her little sister afraid? If there’s something she knows about Sevens, it’s that she doesn’t get scared. Then her all consuming rage snaps into a cool clarity. It’s not that she’s not still angry. She’s furious. But if she lets that control her, she won’t get anything worthwhile done. She’s still angry, she’s just being smart about it. She stalks down the hallway, following the sounds of destruction, Sevens trailing behind her.

A trio of stormtroopers dash towards her, all of them talking at her and pointing towards an open door, through which the sounds of destruction are emanating.

She storms through the door and sees Lord Ren laying waste to a communications array. Stomp, one of her troopers, is trapped underneath one of the tables. That is unacceptable.

“Stop this at once!” She shouts, and he whips around to face her. He’s not wearing that ridiculous helmet for once, and she’s taken aback by how young he is. So young, and yet so incredibly powerful.

And yet, such an utter little shit.

Suddenly, with his full attention focused on her, Phasma finds herself getting nervous. But she can’t allow herself to back down, not with her troops watching her. 

“Why should I?” He snaps back, and she knows nothing about the Force, but even she can sense his rage bubbling just below the surface. 

“I don’t care what you do,” Phasma says, and he laughs, long and harsh and sharp. “No, really, I couldn’t care less. Smash all the communications arrays you want, I won’t get in your way for a second.” She takes a step closer to him and pokes at his chest with one outstretched finger. “But if I ever catch you endangering the lives of my troops again, you won’t have to worry about catching it from Snoke, because I’ll rip out your intestines through your throat and have them for stockings before you can point that ridiculous glowstick of your at me.”

She takes a step back. “Are we clear?”

Lord Ren swallows hard, and he’s not exactly afraid of her, but there’s respect in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. “We’re clear.”

Phasma doesn’t do anything for show. Her armor, although platinum, still protects her, and it weighs more than most people imagine. And when she makes threats, she is always certain that she can back them up. 

She doesn’t make threats. She makes promises.

So yes, she is literally prepared to disembowel Lord Ren if she has to, Force be damned. Phasma is brutal and efficient and utterly ruthless at what she does. She hasn’t gotten this far by playing nice, and all of command knows it.

The thing is that the majority of command is a lot of prissy assholes who’d likely shoot themselves in the eye if ever handed a blaster, and the other part of command uses outdated forms of combat to look impressive. She isn’t like them. Phasma is a brawler. Put her in a fight, and she’ll hit her opponent until they fall down.

So when the First Order starts a sparring group in order to improve morale, hers is the first name on the list.

There are snickers when she shows up to the first meeting armorless, helmetless, dressed in a tank top and tight, stretch pants, wearing no shoes and with strips of fabric wrapped around her knuckles.

(Sitting on the bridge, enjoying a glass of Corellian wine, Hux smiles and bets on her. The odds are fantastic, because Phasma’s made a point of keeping her head down and letting her results do the talking for her. Also, there’s the fact that she never takes off her armor in front of other officers, so no one knows what she really looks like and consequently, no one knows who she is.)

By the time she finishes her third round, her thighs wrapped around the throat of a colonel with twice her muscles mass and a cocky smirk that she hates already, they all know her name. She is certain of that, because now when she walks down the halls, whispers and stares follow her like shadows.

They give her FN-2187, though for what purpose, she has no idea. He’s from Sanitation, for crying out loud, he’s never even seen active duty. How is she meant to use him?

Hux tells her, as he’s counting his winnings from her latest fight, that he’s been picked out as having potential for command, and they want her to assess his abilities. Which, this sort of explains a lot, but raises still more questions. Why has he been transferred to her unit? Nevertheless, she promises herself that she will do right by him.

And Phasma tries, she really does try, but for some reason her siblings just don’t take to him, and he becomes an outsider. She tries everything she can think of, requesting him for one on one training sessions, forcing bonding exercises and the like, but nothing seems to work. She seems to accept the code of discipline and honor, but the others just don’t accept him.

Maybe he just isn’t meant to be a stormtrooper.

No! No. No one is meant to be a stormtrooper, but anyone can become one through hard work and perseverance. If he is failing but trying, then there must be something she is doing wrong. There must be something she can do; she refuses to let one of her own fail.

She refuses to let herself fail.

So Phasma works even harder. If she can just get him to be a part of the family, then he'll be all right. Then he'll want to work hard to protect them. She doesn't kill to further an agenda, she kills to protect the people who protect her.

FN-2187 sees combat for the first time, and things seem to go well. He isn't killed, but he doesn't kill, and he doesn't get in anyone else's way. The one downside of Jakku that she's immediately aware of is that they lose a few troopers.

Then they return to the Finalizer and she finds out that he's actually broken conditioning, removing his helmet in the open and worse, doing so without permission. She orders him to report to her by the end of the cycle to be reprimanded, but it's too late, as it turns out. Before she gets a chance to speak to him, FN-2187 breaks out a prisoner and flees the Finalizer. 

So Phasma does the only thing she can think to do. She finds Hux and they two of them go and get drunk.

Head foggy with alcohol, she considers the betrayal. She weighs it, compares it to other pains she has experienced, and carries it with her. She swears that she will not allow herself to fail like this again.

This is what she does. She catalogs each and every one of her failures and surrounds herself with them, like a coat of armor. She carries on, because that's what she's been trained to do, only now there's doubt worming its way into her mind. She knows that FN-2187 had great potential, could have risen easily up the chain of command if-

If what? There is nothing more she could have done to help him, the Jakku incident shows that quite clearly, and yet-

And yet nothing. The conditioning kicks in, reminding her that the strong alone are permitted to rise, that the weak cannot rise, that they are shown through their failures.

What does that say about her? Phasma knows she must be strong; she acts with discipline and honor and has risen high, therefore she must be strong. But then, she has also failed before

Which is she? The strong one, or the weak one? Which is FN-2187?

When she looks in the mirror, Phasma isn't sure she knows who she is anymore.

She keeps these doubts to herself. Normally she is the first to submit herself for reconditioning at any sign of doubt towards the First Order, but something about this seems different. Off, almost. She doesn't want the cold blankness of reconditioning. She wants to figure this out herself.

And something is wrong with her troopers as well. They're skittish lately. Afraid? Are they afraid of something? What has she been doing with herself that she doesn't notice such a change in her troops?

What is going on?

Her suspicion and confusion only grow when she realizes that Stomp hasn't been around the last few days. A scan of her files shows that his file has vanished. She checks the system, and all traces of him have been removed, like he never even existed.

That isn't right. She should have been notified, Stomp shouldn't have just fallen off the map like this. 

She takes her concerns to Hux, who gives her what is essentially a polite dismissal with an undercurrent of stop-asking-so-many-questions and you're-coming-close-to-a-fall-captain, and since when have his eyes been so cold?

Phasma takes the dismissal and goes back to her quarters, her mind buzzing like a bucket full of bees. What is going on here? Has this been going on all along, stormtroopers vanishing without a trace and no one lifting a finger?

And it's not just that no one is helping, people are actively discouraging her from trying to find out the truth. And maybe it's not her place to ask, but how can she not when this is her family?

Why would Stomp just vanish like this? She's certain no one would target one specific stormtrooper; no one knows who any of them are besides her.

But then things get hectic, and she has no time to consider any of this, because Kylo Ren is destroying two rooms a day, and apparently not all of the Jedi are as gone as she's been led to believe.

Phasma sees FN-2187 later, dressed in civilian clothes. She can't hate him, not until she understands all this better, but she comes pretty close when he dumps her down a trash compacter, scratching up her armor quite nicely.

Hux's Starkiller burns, and Phasma doesn't care. She's far away on a transport shuttle when it happens. 

And then she's back with her troops, still trying to figure out what's going on. Other captains seek her out, passing her papers with the codes of stormtroopers who have suddenly vanished from their units.

There is only one thing Phasma is certain of; the First Order has not been acting with the honor she associates with them. By extension, neither has she been acting with the honor she associates with herself.

That is unacceptable. Phasma has always prided herself on her values, and she can't stomach the fact that she's been allowing herself to act in this way. She has to fix this; there has to be some way she can make things right.

But how? Staying with the First Order will only make her more complicit. The obvious answer is that she has to leave before someone catches wind of her treacherous thoughts.

Of course, who's going to figure it out? Kylo Ren is gone, and though the higher ups are telling everyone he's temporarily away to complete some important mission, she likes to think she knows his temperament better than that.

Lord Ren is either dead or defected, and is unlikely to be returning in either case. There is no one left to search her mind and find her heresy.

That makes things considerably easier. Phasma has to get out of here, that's for certain, but what about her troops? What kind of leader would she be if she just left them behind?

It's risky to even consider defecting, practically suicide to try and bring an entire unit with her. But she can't just abandon them.

The possibility crosses her mind that if she tries to take them with, some of them might betray her. But her resolve strengthens. Her family would never, could never do that to her. Their bond is stronger than the First Order's conditioning. They have fought and killed and died for each other, and there is nothing that she will not do for them. She only hopes the feeling is mutual.

So Phasma starts planning. It takes a month to arrange transport and keep it secret, but she doesn't stop there. She starts sowing the seeds of rebellion, spreading rumors and planting ideas in as many heads as possible. If she's leaving, she wants to take as many of them down with her as she can.

Finally, the only thing left to do is convince her troops to come with her. She's purposely left it to the very end, figuring it it'll leave her less time to be betrayed.

Phasma sits on her bed, staring down at her armor. This armor has gotten her through so many battles, and she knows that it's as much a part of her as her values. If anything, it is her honor. And yet, it's tainted. The First Order took the thing that's most precious to her and perverted it, twisted it into some sick instrument of their own will. All the things she's done in this armor have been for twisted people in service of their twisted goals.

But she didn't do those things for them. Everything she's done, she did to protect the people who depend on her. And that is honorable. If nothing else she's done is, this is honorable.

The First Order may have made the armor and given it to her, but Phasma still earned it. This is still her armor.

The next day, she calls a meeting of her unit in private. They file into the room in silence and sit, taking off their helmets and setting them down. They stare up at her, expectation in their eyes. There’s fear there, but there is also trust.

Phasma’s gloved hands are shaking as she unclasps her own helmet and sets it down on the table in front of her. She scans the room, and sees the faces of her brothers and sisters.

“I’ve made a mistake,” she tells them, and the atmosphere is suddenly tense. She never admits to being wrong. 

“I’ve always told you that we should act with discipline and honor, that this is what distinguishes us from others. I thought that the First Order shared these goals. But I was wrong.”

Her hands clench. “While I was distracted, they’ve been taking our own. Many of you already know this, but I was just recently made aware. I failed you, and I’m sorry.”

The silence in the room is thick and heavy, but Phasma pushes through it. If she stops now, he won’t get through to them, and she has to get through to them.

“I can’t stay here any longer,” she says. “I can’t allow myself to be a part of this. If you want to come with me, you’re more than welcome to do so. You’re family. If you don’t want to come with, I understand. I’m asking a lot of you. But if you don’t, I ask that you don’t tell anyone. We’re your family, and family looks out for each other.”

They’re still just looking at her, faces carefully blank. Her heart sinks, but she finishes what she has to say. 

“I’ll be at Loading Dock C at 0100, and I’ll wait there for fifteen minutes. Please, take the time to consider this fully. I know we’ve all been conditioned to believe that the First Order is good, but what they’re doing is wrong.” She pauses. “Dismissed.”

She walks out, and within thirty seconds of her leaving the room, the comm on her belt beeps twice. A wave of apprehension breaks over her. Does command know what she’s been planning? If they do, she’s dead. Worse than dead. 

But all it turns out to be is a message from command alerting her to the presence of intruders on the ship. Specifically, Lord Ren and the scavenger girl from earlier. They’re both heading towards Supreme Leader Snoke’s receiving room.

Phasma breaks into a jog.  
***  
She lets them go. Why, she has no idea, but Snoke ends up dead and that is more than acceptable to her. But it’s a good thing she’s already planning to leave, because the entire ship is thrown into turmoil. Hux declares himself acting leader, which surprises exactly no one.

Most of the command officers are assigned to the bridge during gamma shift, which is helpful for her. She makes her way down to the loading docks with a confidence that she doesn’t feel. No one is going to start questioning her authority now, not unless she gives them a reason to do so.

Waiting around the loading dock is its own special kind of torture. Phasma knows that the longer she waits to leave, the more likely it is that she’ll be caught. But at the same time, she doesn’t want to leave her troops behind.

She checks the time. 0017. She’s already stayed longer than she had intended to. She looks around, hoping against hope to see her troops coming around the corner.

But no one is coming.

Phasma turns to head for the ship. She’s waited for about as long as she can afford to.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps clicking echoes down the hall, and she freezes. Someone, probably a lot of someones by the sound of it, is coming. In her sheer panic, she finds herself unable to move. She wills her legs to start working, to run, but it doesn’t work.

The echoing footsteps round the corner, and white hot fear wells up in her throat. It’s a full unit of stormtroopers, marching in formation. They clatter to a halt in front of her. This is when Phasma recognizes them.

It’s her own troops. The leader takes off her helmet, and Sevens stares out at her.

“What?” Phasma says, completely staggered.

“We’re coming with,” says Sevens. “Family doesn’t desert family.”  
***  
Yavin IV is finally setting into some semblance of peace. The Resistance base is now firmly established, and no one has attacked since last week. THis i, of course, until one of the watchtowers calls in, shouting about the First Order attacking.

Finn’s heart starts pounding in his chest rapid-fire, and within minutes of the new, it seems as though the entire base is mobilized, with squadrons surrounding the landing strip, guns pointing up in the air. General Organa stands to the side, flanked by two of her officers.

A large transport shuttle lands on the strip, and suddenly all the blasters are pointing at the entry ramp as it opens slowly.

Finn’s heart is in his throat as Captain Phasma, clad in her platinum armor, black and red cape whipping in the wind, strides down the ramp. She stops at the bottom, and if Finn could see her expression, then he would say it’s supremely unimpressed. She reaches up and pulls her helmet off, letting it fall to the ground.

He frowns. This isn’t quite characteristic of her. If the First Order is attacking, where are the rest of the troops? And why does Phasma appear to be unarmed? It doesn’t look like she’s attacking the Resistance. It sort of looks like she’s defecting.

But that makes no sense either! All the same, Finn makes his way towards General Organa and tells her this. She nods and steps forward through the crowd, approaching Phasma carefully. Both women are tense. The General’s gaze keeps darting back to her troops and Phasma looks as if she’s been turned to stone.

“What’s going on?” The General asks. “What are you doing here?”

Phasma glances over at Finn, for some reason. “Got bored,” she deadpans. “You all killed everyone interesting.”

Leia raises an eyebrow. “I suggest you tell us. I’m trying to help, but most of them don’t like you very much. I’ll ask again; what are you doing here.”

She tilts her head back and smirks. Which, Finn wasn’t even aware that the woman had a personality or a sense of humor.

“I’m, you know. Doing a bunk. Defecting, and all that. Brought some friends with me, if you don’t mind.” She glances at the General, who nods.

Phasma turns back to the open entry ramp. “Sevens!” She calls. “Bring them out.”

Finn hears the unmistakable click of stormtroopers walking, and what looks to be an entire unit of them marches out in battle formation. They’re clearly unarmed, but that doesn’t make the Resistance fighters any less nervous.

And okay, this is really kind of weir. Phasma has this thing about honor, and she’s switching sides? In what universe does this make since? And how did she even manage sneaking this many stormtroopers off the Finalizer?

The two women stare each other down for a long moment, each testing the other. No doubt General Organa wants to know Phasma’s motives, and Finn’s certain the Captain wants to know if the Resistance is going to start shooting. She’s taking an incredible risk coming here, Finn realizes. She’s thrown her lot in with a bunch of people who admittedly hate everything she stands for, not to mention she’s risking the lives of all her troops to do so.

The little smile is still on her face, and he really has to appreciate her sheer bravado. Phasma will fit right in.

Finally Organa nods. “Welcome to the Resistance.”

The little smile spreads into a full blown grin, and behind her, the stormtroopers are whooping with sheer joy. Finn, to, is having a hard time keeping a smile off his face. Captain Phasma had been hard on his before, but it had seemed like she genuinely had her troops’ best interest at heart.

General Organa raises her hands, and the crowd quiets. “We’ll need to debrief, of course, starting with your captain.” She nods, and two Resistance fighters fall into step behind herself and Phasma.

As they pass by Finn, the Captain winks looking for all the world as though she’s walking through the garden of her own accord rather than heading off to be interrogated.  
***  
General Organa, as it turns out, is rather an impressive figure. She’s older, but even Phasma can see that she inspires incredible loyalty in her troops. Here is a woman who will understand her philosophy. 

Organa leans forward in her seat. “What I’m wondering is what you want us to do with you all. Do you want to fight?”

She shrugs. “I can’t speak for the rest of my troops, but I want to fight. And I want to be in command of all of my people who want to fight as well.”

“A lot of people won’t go for that. They want your people out from under your command. Possibly locked up.”

Phasma tenses up, her expression falling flat. “They won’t take orders from someone else. They trust me, I have literally spent a lifetime building up a relationship with them.” She gestures towards the door. “Let someone else shadow me if you have to, let FN-2187 do it if you like, just let me command.”

Organa has a cold look on her face. “His name is Finn. We don’t really do your identification numbers here. Tends to make people nervous.”

She spreads her hands in a gesture of surrender. She’s willing to go along with whatever odd naming customs these people have if it will help. “Finn, then. Have Finn keep an eye on us if you like, just let me stay in command.”

Finally, the General nods. “That’s acceptable to me. But I have to ask, why bring all of them with you? Wouldn’t it have been easier to try and escape on your own?”

For all her apparent wisdom, it’s becoming clear that General Organa doesn’t know a hell of a lot about family.

“Family doesn’t leave family behind,” Phasma says. “Not while there’s still hope.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah. If you were ever wanting the fic where Phasma realizes that the First Order is really awful, and also a fic that is rife with symbolism that smacks you in the face, you have come to the right place.


End file.
